6.12.10

TOO CLOSE TO CALL

Stephen Hendry and Jimmy White both have free passes to snooker's hall of fame but after an electrifying start to their first round match in Telford yesterday, the standard plummeted.

Hendry looked embarrassed at the end to have lost the eighth frame, which he seemed certain to win.

At least at 4-4 the match is close, which should provide some excitement this afternoon. Indeed there are several matches poised nicely at the 12bet.com UK Championship.

Ronnie O'Sullivan had to win the last two frames last night to achieve parity with Stuart Bingham, who played very nicely and with great confidence but needs to do similar today to stand a chance of causing an upset.

Ali Carter did not produce the goods against Mark Joyce yesterday. I wondered if he felt the pressure of being such a big favourite or maybe he was unwell.

He will still be favourite to come through today but it could depend on whether Joyce can hold himself together if he gets close to the winning line.

Patrick Wallace also had chances against Shaun Murphy before ending the day trailing him 5-3 but, again, it's close.

The format means that only half of the last 16 matches can be played on the TV tables and, with so many top players through, this means a number of big names will be relegated to the outside tables.

This is a far from ideal situation and of course leads to fans of particular players complaining that they can't watch their matches.

how expensive can it be to put at least one camera on each table? i imagine something like eptc in Gloucester with one camera. It wasn't perfect but it was watchable. Then some radical Selby fans for example could watch their man in action.

I think Ding/Allen deserves to be on the TV table more than the Higginson/Robertson match, even though he is the World Champion, TV viewers are more likely to know who Allen are than Andrew. It is stupid though that at the second most prestigious tournament even has non-televised tables in the second round.

Why would TV viewers know Mark Allen better than Robertson?? Allen has never reached a final whereas Robertson has won five BBC tournaments including three of the last five. Even Barry Hearn at the Masters last January didn't know who Mark Allen is!

I have two gripes with the BBC coverage so far:– Why do commentators think that just because a player needs snooker he has already lost the frame? Too many times, someone like Virgo will go "and that makes it 2-1" when the frame – which stands at, say, 1-1 – is still in progress with player B trying to put player A in a snooker. Okay, they may not get the snooker/s, but the frame is not over until it's over.– Ken Doherty.

Of course they should put the defending champion, the number 1 seed on one of the televised tables. They cannot be deferring to BBC ratings all the time. World Snooker should arrange the TV tables according to seedings, or at least the top seeds... I understand the argument for showing O'sullivan or Higgins, and they feel bad not putting the World Champion on one of the TV tables... But surely they could find a better way to arrange all the matches, rather than jamming the top three seeds in the same time slot... Plus, there are TV in China too...

6:40 you may be right. When he is in a losing position he doesn't try to turn it around. It is a very puzzling trait. Maybe he could have fought back but we will never know. This change in mood comes from a clear sky every time. The danish commentator called it borderline disrespectful.

Congratulations goes to Hendry, although I'm sure he would agree there is little to celebrate. It was really painful to once again see this champion of champions struggle like that. Luckily he was up against an equally shaky Jimmy which made for great entertainment, especially towards the end of the match.

But Mark will butcher the legend unless he finds some confidence in a hurry. That cueing action has to be hidden somewhere inside Stephen but right now I find it hard to see him lifting the trophy.

Its absolutely simple to me and requires little effort at all compared to some of the other ideas spouted about....

All matches can be played on TWO TV tables and within the same NINE day window as present simply by adding a morning session and playing rolling sessions at 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm (approx) so you can have 4 matches fully played each day.

Playing the first session on non-televised tables would make it pointless having two session matches, might as well ditch the format. The problem is that they're trying to play too many rounds on two few tables in too few days, so something has to give: if you played it (or at least televised it) from the last 16 stage with 4 first round hold-overs everyone could play on TV.

In his interview following defeat by Bingham he said that he needs to play in more events, a bit late considering all the Players Tour Events have finished.

I think his attitude during the second session was diappointing to say the least, he can be exsaperating to support, at times.

It was a pleasure to see Stephen Lee back playing at his silky, smooth best in defeat to Higgins, who I would like to point was my tip to win the title, although Dave two tips are still there, so it may not be time for me to takeover your betfair column!!

One thing that no-one seems to have mentioned is there is no divide between the two tables in the way that we are used too. What do people who have visited Telford think of this change to the layout?

Last Thursday, I applied for tickets through the World Snooker site and when clicking the buy tickets icon for Sunday Dec 5th, it said tickets were sold out, clearly this was not the case, it ultimately meant we didn't go, which peeved me a little.